THE sound which signalled the shifts at the Northern United pit near Cinderford echoed around the area once again – but this time to mark the anniversary of its closure.

Around 30 people gathered near the miners’ memorial to remember the closure of the last deep mine in the Forest, exactly 50 years to the day.

Among those at the ceremony were Charlie Penn of Ruardean Woodside and Don Wild of Cinderford who worked at Northern and remembered well the closure on Christmas Eve 1965.

The hooter, attached to an air compressor, was sounded by Maurice Bent who is now a verderer but who, in 1965, worked as a carpenter at Northern and secured it after the last men had left.

He said: “I was here 16 years as a carpenter and I put wire around the top of the pit and closed it all off – it was my last job here.

“In 1965 Northern closed and it was the last of that great era of Forest mining. To mark that occasion we sound the Northern hooter.

“It wasn’t just a way of life for the colliers, it was the comradeship that had evolved.”

The hooter was rescued by Eric Morris of The Pludds when he demolished the engine house and it is now kept by his wife.

Mr Penn remembered working on his stomach cutting coal in a narrow seam which was three miles from the pithead.

He added: “It was hard work and it was very wet down in that part of the pit.

“It was a mining area and I think everybody had somebody in the pit.”

As well as sounding the hooter, Mr Bent also read a poem The Last Pit, by Mabel Beech which is reproduced on the letters page of this week’s Review.